Portfolios: Michael Lange's WALD and FLUSS

photo-eye GalleryPortfolios: Michael Lange's WALD and FLUSS
photo-eye Gallery is excited to open WALD/FLUSS, an exhibition of landscape photographs from Michael Lange opening on Friday, August 28th. Lange will be in attendance signing copies of his two books WALD and FLUSS, both published by Hatje Cantz.

photo-eye Gallery is excited to open WALD/FLUSS, an exhibition of landscape photographs from German photographer Michael Lange. Opening on Friday, August 28th, the photo-eye Gallery exhibition is his first solo show in the United States. Lange will be in attendance signing copies of his two books WALD and FLUSS, both published by Hatje Cantz.
Translating to “forest” and “river,” the large format color photographs of WALD/FLUSS explore the natural world with compelling subtly and particular interest in the capacity of these landscapes to act as conduit for the human subconscious. In both series one is struck with the sensation of encountering these landscapes on one’s own, existing in the presence of the wild and untamed, the constant force of change in the landscape.

Speaking with Erin Azouz in 2014, Lange described the origins of the WALD series like this: “All together WALD was a slow process, a kind of incremental. This was my first landscape project. A personal approach was needed, a photographic language demanded. So over weeks and month I literally let myself get lost deeper and deeper into the woods and tried many different techniques, perspectives and approaches.”

The technique that Lange settled on for these photographs is striking. Photographing in low light, the images take on an unusual almost other-worldly quality: “In the transition from dark to dawn, nature is like a hidden beauty wrapped in a gloomy silken paper. It is light years away from a forest in sunlight. A similar effect happens in twilight, on a dark rainy day, with mist or fog. The landscape gets transformed in a magical way one often can't predict. A shallow situation might change drastically into a dramatic one and reveal a depth and fullness one could not imagine. “

Transitioning from the forest to the river, Lange felt an instant attraction to this new landscape as well as a recognition of its representational and figurative reach: “I was instantly fascinated by the wild, jungle-like landscape. The lonely harshness of the almost rejecting winter nature attracted me strongly. I could see a deep beauty in the dripping colorlessness and dark desolation and I loved it from the very first moment. It was a perfect piece of art in its own, nothing missing.”

“The power of the fast running water in the channel is almost physical. It is dangerous, deep and impenetrable — unfathomable due to the swift flow and permanent flux of the surface with nothing to hold on to. It's like a call for hidden and subconscious feelings. These two different worlds, depending and coexisting partners, one wild and raw the other seemingly tamed — are what have kept me coming back.”

Soft and painterly, the images in WALD and FLUSS possess an atmospheric aspect akin to memory. Presented side by side, these two bodies of work present a vision of the natural world both dichotomous in the variation of stillness and movement and unified in their deft conjuring of interior spaces. The images of WALD and FLUSS seem especially reflection of the internal landscape, resonant with feelings that are deeply known if impossible to articulate.